Save The Trail Petition

Testimony before the

COG Transportation Planning Board

May 20, 2009

Testimony of Matthew K. Sullivan

Kensington, MD 

Members of the Board, my name is Matt Sullivan and I live in the Rock Creek Hills neighborhood of Kensington.  The proposed Purple Line light-rail system has been promoted as the solution to the traffic congestion choking roads around Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties, which by almost all accounts, is anticipated to worsen dramatically as the region continues to grow.

Yet the MTA’s daily ridership projections are 62,600 – of which only 19,200, less than one-third, are expected to be new transit riders.  So, two-thirds already take transit, and when you factor the ridership counts as round trips, are we really only talking about taking 9600 cars off the roads?  That’s about half a sold out Terps game at the Comcast Center (17,950).  It’s hard to see how that makes the Purple Line a viable mass transit project by any measure.

With the FDA’s consolidation at White Oak (7,000+ employees), BRAC’s relocation of Walter Reed Army Medical Center to Bethesda Naval Hospital campus (2,200 employees plus an estimated doubling of patients and visitors), the new White Flint Sector Plan (adding 17,000 dwelling units and 1.8 million square feet of office and retail space) and continued development along Rockledge Drive and around Montgomery Mall, our area is poised to explode, resulting in a massive increase in traffic problems which plans for light-rail cannot address.

Nor does the Purple Line plan address the ultimately desirable regional goal of linking Montgomery County with Tyson’s Corner and eventually BWI, serving key locations along the way such as Strathmore, NIH, downtown Silver Spring and College Park.

I believe the better long-term solution is a new, east-west heavy rail line to Washington’s proven and highly-successful Metro system. Money is always the problem, but there are ways to make construction cost-efficient and creatively fund this vital work. Perhaps such a heavy-rail line could be built over or under the Beltway to keep land costs down, perhaps development rights above station stops could be auctioned in exchange for capital revenue or perhaps voters could be told, honestly and directly, “it’s going to be painful and expensive, but it will work—are you in?” We might all be surprised by just how many people will have the foresight to sign on—just like they did when the Red Line was the suburban pioneer of the Metro system.

Thank you.